text: Edith Humphrey was born on 11 September 1875 at 41 Lismore Road, Kentish Town, London. She was the youngest of the seven surviving children of Louisa (née Frost, 1831–1911) and John Charles Humphrey (1833–1903). Her mother had been a dressmaker before marriage, and her father was a clerk at the London Metropolitan Board of Works and later London County Council. 
  John Humphrey had started life in poor circumstances, his father having been a bootmaker, and he was a great supporter of education for his daughters as well as his sons. Edith grew up in a middle-class household in Kentish Town, London. Her two elder sisters became teachers, and her brothers, including Herbert Alfred Humphrey (1868–1951), inventor of the Humphrey pump, and William Humphrey (1863–1898), head of the Fourah Bay College in Freetown, Sierra Leone, were educated to degree level.
  Humphrey attended Camden School for Girls and then, from 1891, North London Collegiate School, one of the first girls' schools in the UK to include science in the curriculum. Both schools were set up by Frances Buss.
  From 1893 to 1897 Humphrey studied chemistry (and physics) at Bedford College, London, with a scholarship of £60 per annum. On completion of her degree, she applied to do a PhD at the University of Zurich.